Loving a Bad Boy (Bad Boys Western Romance Book 4)

by Susan Arden

  He had yelled he wasn’t coming back. Running to catch him, she flung open the front door, rushed over the porch, and down the walkway. “Daddy, wait!” she cried out.

  Sommer couldn’t get her fingers to work the latch on the gate fast enough. Suddenly it unbolted and out she spilled onto the sidewalk. Her heart raced as she watched the red lights like two angry eyes speed away, and incrementally fade in the distance. Daddy’s gone.

  Crystal droplets hung from the oak leaves and fresh snow blanketed the front lawn. Not wearing slippers, the pavement was cold under her feet. Clattering clip-clops echoed similar to the clattering in her chest. She turned, hugging Dandelion as the stinging in her eyes made it impossible to breathe.

  That’s when Sommer noticed him. Rory McLemore on a silvery horse. He cantered up, jumped down, and landed right next to her.

  He’s here. Today, she’d given Rory a valentine she’d made. Right red, so red it made her smile each time she’d added another coat of paint. Underneath she’d painted violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. A secret rainbow like how she felt each time Rory came near. His blue eyes were brighter than the clearest sky. And when he smiled, his one dimple made her heart trip.

  Like now. Her heart sprinted.

  She couldn’t believe it was possible. He lived on a ranch and no one around here had a horse. His cheeks were red and his chest puffed rapidly. Standing next to her, heat rolled off him and kept her warm.

  “It’s late,” she whispered.

  “Brought you something.” Rory slanted near, reached out, and wiped the tear off her cheek. “Don’t be sad, Sommer.”

  She didn’t want him to think she was a bawl-baby. Not after she’d gotten up the courage to give Rory a red heart. Rough and tumble, he didn’t talk much, but no one teased him. He wouldn’t like a coward. Puffing up her chest, she pretended to be brave like him.

  She took the envelope and a spark ignited on her skin as their fingers touched. Opening it she felt as if a magic wand had dusted her with delight, reading the Valentine and how he’d signed it ‘Always, Your Rory.”

  Inhaling the scent of his clean crispness filled her… made Sommer’s sorrow lessen. Shifting Dandelion on her shoulder, she peered down at the envelope he held out to her. Two butterflies decorated the center. One had her name. The other his.

  Rory leaned even closer. “Remember those butterflies at the pond? I was thinking of them and us.”

  “Sure do. One landed on your head and the other on mine. You’re a real good artist.” She loved drawing and painting and took the envelope. Entranced, she traced a finger over the butterflies he’d drawn. They matched the ones in her memory. She recalled the twin blue butterflies at a swim party for his ninth birthday last summer. Fearlessly swinging on a rope, he did backflips none of the other boys could manage. Unafraid, he never seemed sad. More like a hero in an adventure and she wanted to be like him, unafraid. “One day, I’m gonna be an artist. Might move to a big city. We can keep sharing drawings.”

  Rory’s eyes went round. “Where, Sommer?”

  “Some place special,” she whispered.

  “Don’t leave without telling me first. Okay?” He took hold of her hand as the space between his eyebrows crinkled.

  On her tiptoes, she reached up, holding onto his shoulder, and kissed his cheek. “I will. I promise, cowboy.”

  Chapter 3

  “Baby, if you don’t want to tell me, fine. Just tell me, how long have you been here?” Rory asked her pointblank. “Something has got you going.”

  Sommer had to shut this conversation down. Rory’s seemingly innocent questions were a tripwire waiting to happen. Like an idiot, she had agreed to him dealing with a check engine light in her car. It was an oxygen sensor and he’d fixed it and changed her oil on Wednesday evening. All he had to do was get an eyeful of her odometer and then the questions would really start.

  “Long enough to know I’m tired of sitting and waiting,” Sommer quipped, unwilling to let him see the confusion and frustration that ping-ponged in her chest.

  Rory’s eyebrow lifted a bit. Enough to let her know he caught her meaning but wasn’t buying it. ‘It’ was an old argument by the name of marriage. Hell, if she wanted protection from Clay Bell’s blackmail, marrying into the McLemore clan would fix her problems by dumping them into Rory’s lap. She loved him too much to be a burden.

  Yet truthfully, it wasn’t just Deputy Slimeball who had her braking at the idea of marriage. There were other reasons. Hard to explain why on the idea of holy matrimony, they didn’t see eye-to-eye even. Although they did meet mouth to mouth, chest to chest, belly to belly, but that’s as far as it went.

  Down south was out of the picture.

  For him.

  Not for her.

  “Sommer, don’t start.” He tried to pull her to him, but she slipped off the other side of the barstool. Out of his reach, and he came up empty, slapping his palm against his muscular thigh. His smoky eyes glinted, penetrating and intense in their depths in the heat he kept harnessed.

  “Then bend a little. For me, Rory.” God, this close to him, she felt the coil of spiraling need and ache twirl deep in her belly. Damn. If he’d only unchain that side of him.

  Maybe I’m the problem. Something she lacked, and the reason he kept himself in check.

  “C’mon, darlin’. Give me some sugar before the game starts up again.”

  “Come dance with me and I will. Lots.” She bracketed her hips, relishing the way his eyes shifted down her body, stalling at the neckline of her new shirt. One from a line of slinky T-shirts she’d created by learning how to cut and fashion material into body-hugging clothing.

  Tonight, she wore an off-the-shoulder red version that draped over her breasts with cutouts along the sides. No way to wear a bra, and easy to see where Rory’s eyes feasted. Even so, her cowboy refused to bend to her will. He kept his jeans zipped and had given her a choice: marriage or celibacy.

  Abstinence. As in zero hot sex.

  No one in town knew they hadn’t done it. Everyone assumed since he was the youngest stud from the McLemore clan, he had given her a ride to dream about—scream about. Oh yeah, she was close to hollerin’—out of frustration.

  “After the game, I’ll dance with you. Now, be good,” he warned in a low voice. “And come back to me.”

  Don’t fall for it, Kincaid! She’d had all she could stand, and soon things were going to change as far as who was pushing whom to the brink.

  “Can’t,” she tossed back.

  “Girl, you don’t want to make me get off this stool and get hold of you. Not without having a beer first.”

  “McLemore, who says you could catch me even if I gave you a head start?” She leveled him with her best-cocked eyebrow, the pierced one that he’d huffed plenty about when she’d come back from a girls’ weekend in Dallas last year. She glanced over to her girlfriends on the dance floor. Both of them were hooked up for the evening with a pair of frisky musicians who had more on their minds besides watching a stupid football game and drinking beer. “One of these days, I might not be waiting around here while you wet your whistle and high-five all your friends.”

  “You sound pretty ornery tonight. Something has got you going. For the last time, mind telling me what’s on the agenda?” He canted over her vacated stool and spread his large hand over the surface. “Sugar, I’ve had a hard day and I ain’t in the mood to have you jumping down my throat all night.”

  Frustration sizzled on the tips of her nerves as she stared into his captivating face. A Stetson wearing devil and it felt like he held her imprisoned in how she could barely think straight in wanting him so much. Her shackled heart chafed, leaving her on edge and hungry to feel the sting of something more than the snap of Rory’s words. She wanted to lose herself with him…naked.

  “I don’t have any plans. I just want to live in the moment. Is that so bad?” Her voice came out husky. If
only he understood how much she needed a night with him to escape the memories of the past. A short reprieve wasn’t criminal, it was therapeutic! What would Rory do if he realized how much in the ‘now’ she needed to live?

  “Of course not.”

  “Then what?”

  “Darlin’ some of us have responsibilities and can’t take off to go teach children in Honduras.”

  “It was Guatemala,” she corrected him as her temper started to spark. “Are you saying that doing charity work is a waste of time?”

  “Don’t twist my words, Sommer. You’re just in a fighting mood.”

  “Am not. I’m wanting to do more than watch television is all.” Exasperated, she shored up her vow to keep cool. Tears pricked her eyes and Sommer bit back a smart-mouthed reply. She wasn’t about to get outright upset here. Dammit, she didn’t even know why he irked her so much…Oh what a lie!

  This standoff wasn’t news. His aloofness was legendary. They’d endured a hundred breakups, but something about him had crept under her skin. Before high school and their first real kiss, she’d been deeply, irreversibly in love with him. Their love made all the other shitty stuff in her life bearable. It tore the breath from her lungs in how much she wanted him…needed him. This ache was both her strength and her weakness.

  Sommer didn’t want them to forget how to be spontaneous. Otherwise what would be the point? For them she fought falling in line. It was as much for Rory as for her that she kicked up her heels. She didn’t want their memories to fade and eventually be forgotten. Diving in a pond on the spur of the moment, fully clothed. Or their first kiss.? Unplanned and under the moonlight. Or picking blackberries for dinner, like they’d done in May. Eat them until the juice dripped down their chins. Before, it seemed like they’d had so many spur-of-the-moments together, and were headed in the same direction. But of late with all the work, worry, and frustration, she wasn’t sure.

  Rory, the wild impulsive boy who’d ridden to her house on his horse one night, was nowhere to be seen. Sommer desperately needed that side of him, especially when Bell threatened to renegotiate her ‘sentence’ or worse, he threatened her mom.

  “Baby, living by the seat of your pants is fine for someone like you.”

  Taking a slow breath, Sommer inhaled and exhaled to clear her head. “What do you mean someone like me?” She planted her booted feet wider apart, stretching the bottom of her faded jean skirt.

  “Nothing,” he muttered. Her cowboy was turning into a man who liked to plan his next move. Or debate Sommer’s plans—squashing her ideas if they didn’t get talked to death first. He tried to keep her boxed into a corner on some silly pretext of staying safe.

  How many times had he said, ‘Better safe than sorry?’ Too many to count. She wanted to scream and shake him. Demand that her soul mate return right this instant!

  “At least I don’t act like I’m a hundred and one like some folks. Playing cards and tossing darts. Your grandpa does that with his old cronies.”

  “Look, I’m working like a madman, and it’s the busiest time of the year. Can we just not get into it tonight? You’re pushing me, baby.” He gazed back at her, a muscle in his cheek twitching and flashing a warning.

  A warning she chose to ignore. “I work too, in case you forgot. Maybe I don’t deal with cattle or horses, but what I do isn’t easy. But I’m here, wanting to be with you.”

  Exhaling heavily, Rory pushed his hat back on his head. He picked up his beer and her drink. “You know I came here because there’s no other place I want to be.”

  He just made her point and she felt her brows knit together. Clenching her jaw, she walked the three steps back to him, took her shot of tequila from his outstretched fingers, and knocked it against his beer mug. “At the Double Diamond. That isn’t news!”

  “Sugar,” he growled. The way his eyes raked down her then back up, it felt like she’d been licked by fire. Flames all but sparked from his eyes when their gazes locked. “All you have to do is say ‘yes’ and I’ll give you what you want.”

  “We don’t need a preacher to do what I want.”

  He gritted out, “We do as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Suit yourself, cowboy.” She slung her shot across her lips. No salt. No lime. Just booze. The burn going down her throat wasn’t a match to the burn in her chest. If Rory didn’t make a decision soon—Sommer stopped that line of thought. Slamming the shot glass down on the bar, she turned on her heel and marched to the edge of the dance floor.

  Her chest was tighter than if it were wrapped in masking tape. Sommer slumped against a post, watching her girlfriends lip-locked with the guys they knew for what, like fifteen minutes?

  Ivy and Jen weren’t even in a dark corner, but smack-dab in plain sight. She wondered what they’d be doing in another hour if they didn’t slow down. As if she’d rung a cowbell, Ivy looked up and met her gaze. Sommer flinched and quickly waved. Ivy shot a peace sign back, then pulled on Jen’s sleeve.

  Jen peaked over the shoulder of the dark-haired guy, mid-dirty dance routine. Both of her girlfriends’ smiles widened and Ivy winked, curling a finger at Sommer to join them.

  She shook her head and mouthed, “Naw. I’m good.”

  The dude dancing with Jen turned around and gazed over. Only he didn’t look away, but roved his eyes down her body. Sommer pretended not to notice the empty hunger in his stare. He bent closer to her friend without breaking eye contact with Sommer. The guy said something that made Jen’s mouth form an ‘O’ and she shook her head, glancing over to Sommer, and back again to the guy.

  What had the rocker discussed with Jen? If it was anything like what she imagined, forget pretense. She’d give him an earful. Raking a set of fingers through his dark hair, his eyes glinted his conceit as he grinned unabashed.

  With Sommer’s nerves all but frayed, this type of idiocy twisted her stomach. He could take his unrelenting stare and shove it! With a huff, she turned away. It was fruitless to gawk at the dance floor and she met the eyes of Lonny standing off to the side. He nodded, gulping down his drink, and lifted off the wall.

  “Hey,” she said when he sauntered up to her. “What are you up to?”

  “Just checking out the competition,” Lonny said and laughed bitterly. He’d recently broken up with his girlfriend and was back in the dating pool. Everyone’s business here in Annona was either in full spin along the grapevine, retired, or yet to make the rounds. Everyone knew he’d walked in on his girlfriend in bed with another man.

  That had to suck, she thought. Lonny was a couple years older, a local ranch hand, and always cordial to Sommer and her friends.

  “What about you?” Lonny asked.

  “I’m going outside to get some air. Catch you around.”

  “Heard Bell has been given you a rash of shit lately,” he said.

  The pit of her stomach dropped like a lead weight. She mentally stumbled. The ankle bracelet suddenly felt as if it were back on her leg two sizes too small. “I-I-I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t you?” Lonny frowned. “I might be able to help, is what I’m drivin’ at.”

  For a beat, Sommer studied him, gauging what he could possibly offer. Might be some sort of test that Bell had put him up to. That type of mind fuck wasn’t farfetched. Not after what she’d witnessed.

  “I don’t need anybody’s help,” she replied.

  “Maybe, but ya never know.” He shrugged. “Besides, I could use a smoke.”

  She had to play it cool. “If you’re willing to share, then sure.”

  By hearing Lonny out, she could weigh what to admit, if anything. Crossing her arms over her chest, she slanted a glance back at the bar and watched Rory. He stood with his friends, toasting the Dallas Devils recent touchdown. McLemore didn’t turn, and she wasn’t about to go over to try and catch his eye.

  Once outside, Sommer inhaled a slow breath to calm her nerves. Under the dark sky, it was a hun
dred times quieter. There weren’t many people coming and going; not with the game on. Most folks were stationed in front of a television around these parts.

  At the edge of the sidewalk, she stopped and turned toward Lonny. The hairs all over her body shot up as though on alert. He glanced at her in a way that she hadn’t noticed before. Something similar to how the guy on the dance floor had watched her, but coming from Lonny—a guy she’d known for years—it unnerved her. Must be the sodium lights.

  Sommer blinked, unwilling to believe what she observed was real. She faltered, gazing at the entrance door, and suddenly her desire to go back inside flared. “Uh, I just remem—“

  “Here,” Lonny offered her a Marlboro from his pack. “We can smoke and talk. Something’s got to be done about that psycho.”

  If he had a solution to Bell, she couldn’t leave. They weren’t far from the main entrance, just kitty-corner and not more than two yards away from the nearest lamppost. Still, a strange inkling flitted along her ribs. Sommer took the cigarette and dipped her head, taking a drag to light the end from his outstretched lighter.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “No problem.” He lifted the lighter toward his face, holding the flame to his own cigarette.

  Once again, she noticed the piercing edge to the look in his eyes, now reflecting the red-hot end of his cig, and something that wasn’t quite right.

  Sommer sucked in a large drag and started to cough. The puff of smoke rushed out and she squinted from the sting assaulting her eyes. Tears misted her vision and she slammed her eyelids shut. Blinking, she caught sight of Lonny as he tossed his lit cigarette to the ground. In a blur, he yoked around the neck and hauled her toward the side of the building. It happened so fast, she couldn’t get free.

  “Stop it!” she ordered him. “Is this what you call help?”